EMPIRE LOYALISTS WHO FLED FROM AMERICA

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3504, 11 August 1934, Page 4

EMPIRE LOYALISTS WHO FLED FROM AMERICA

STORY OF THEIR TRIBULATIONS. Celebrations are being held th ; ss year in East Canada of the 150th anniversary of settlements by the Empire Loyalists who fled from the American colonies in the Revolution. The following article on the experiences of some of the refugees is compiled from original letters in the archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The splendid idealism which attended the birth of* the Empire wa.s linked with a rigidity of mind which failed to take account of human nature; and it was only realised after 200 years of costly trial and error that the men who will leave home to break ground in an unknown land are likely to be intolerant of restraints and interferences, and more especially of taxation imposed by monarchs or Governments at home. This Colonial intolerance wa s forciby expressed in a letter written when feeling was at its height, in 1776, by the vestry of Providence to their minister: —

The King of Great-Britain . . .with great Armies of his own Subjects and foreign Mercenaries hiath invaded us, and is invading these Colonies, with a declared intention and determined resolution to spread fire, Sword and Desolation throughout the Country, until we shall confess that the British Parliament hath a right to make Laws that shall bind us in all Cases whatsoever.—,A claim the most dreadful that was ever made upon a People; especially when made by People at the distance of 3000 Miles froim. those who are to foe the Subjects of so unlimited a Tyranny.

Yet the bonds of affection were strong, /and it was only very slowly that the impatience of this growingnation became an exasperation that was fomented by colossal blunders on the part of the home Government, and exploded finally into civill war and revolution. " DANGER OF DEATH. The letters in this collection, written while events were hurrying toward the climax of 1776, are reticent; for, as one writer says, " the general infatuation at that t'tae (1774) rendered it imprudent to correspond even with a private friend." It was only after the storm had broken, when parties were more dearly defined, that those who had fled beyond the reach of Congress could write freely, One man writes from Falmouth, New England, in 1775: ■" I wfas obliged last week ... to retire on board one of his majesties armed vessels, and believe that our lives would still be in danger from the madness of the people, were they not restrained from apprehension of a larger.ship's coming to our assist)a,nce. The whole Eastern Country is up in arms, they talking of securing every friend to government; & several persons were confined last week by the populace of Kennebeck."

A week later he went on shore with Mr M,owat, commander of one of the men-of-war then in hiarbour. W[hile walking on a hill near the town they " were on a sudden surrounded by a body of men, armed with muskets and bayonets, who commanded us to surrender ourselves prisoners. We were with the company of Banditti (which consisted of 67 mien commanded by one Thompson their colonel) three hours and a half ... in great danger of being shot to death." He presently fled with his family from Falmouth to Boston, but instead of slafety was to meet with keener grief and distress. Two months later the story of ruin was completed. Ships were sent from" Boston to burn the town. • On October 17 they carried out their orders; there was a "dreadful conflagration" in which Church and private property shared the., same fate. Such letters, written at the moment and on the spot, do not of course tell the tale in true perspective, especially as the writers belonged to a body—the clergy—who in the main wetfe bound to hold strongly the conservative position. What they do show clearly is the bewilderment of a people suddenly flaced with conflicting loyalties. One issue, however, was clear, and that--was-, loyally to. the King; and for the clergy the reading of the State prayers in church became !a,n obvious test. This was the crux of the matter to most of these scattered letter-writers, who sent home some remarkable correspondence on the point urgently asking for advice. Where the loyalist cllergy were not imprisoned or compelled to flee their charge they shut up their churches rather than omit the prayers for the King; some, indeed, continued such prayetrs in spirt of repeated insults and threats. ■CHURCHES IN NEW YORK. Some of the most viv.'d writing is from the pen if Inglis, who was left in charge of the churches in New York. Soon after the arrival of the revolutionary forces (April a message was brought that " General Washington would be at church and would be gliad if the violent prayers for the King and Royal family were omitted." |( , . The messenger,- one of the Rebel generals," was bluntly informed that it was in his power to shut up

churches, but not to make the-Clergy depart from their duty. Inglis,- a man of dauntless courage, remained in the city while it was taken and retaken. He continued to use the State Prayers even when " A company of armed rebels marched into the church with drums beating and fifes playing, their guns loaded and bayonets fixed."

He remained in New York for some time after the Declaration of Independence), ministering to the sick and dying of both parties, until finlally his position became intolerable, and he, too, moved to Canada, where he became the first colon'al Bishop. Canada now became the goal of thousands of exiles, many of them stripped of possessions, friends, and breadwinners. Letter after letter relates the pain of parting from the land of their birth, the miseries of the journey north, the d : etresses that awaited the settlers, many of them inexperienced in the pioneering life, in No\la Scotia and beyond the St. Lawrence. ANNAPOLIS. Annapolis in Nova Scotia was the point of arriva.ll of hundreds upon hundreds of refugees, and conditions there were truly chaotic. One writer tells of the addition of tens of thousands of souls "to a country which about two years ago contained no more than fifteen thousand." "Multitudes in this rigorous and stormy season are still without shelter. Near 400 of these miserable exiles have perished in a violent tempest, and I am persuaded that disease disappointment, poverty and chagrin, will, before the return of another spring", finish the course of many more." *

Yet the Loyalists persisted. One of the clergy pleads for help from England, although he is "sensible that general representations of calamity cannot make deep impressions upon the gay and dissipated part of mankind who reside in a .region of opulence, ease, and security."

Succour was meagre and slow to come. But that bitter episode of colonial history was not. without fruit. England had begun to learn to give to her pioneers and colonists the "free libertie " which Queen Elfizlabeth had promised to Gilbert, and that without restraint or. interference. Canada, looking back over 150 years, may rightly pay homage to the .memory of those who enriched her heritage with the twin traditions of freedom and loyalty.